ays to be useless where most I wish to spend it!"

He had scarcely greeted his hostess when he said: "Miss Maxwell,
doesn't it strike you that our friend Rebecca looks wretchedly tired?"

"She does indeed, and I am considering whether I can take her away with
me. I always go South for the spring vacation, traveling by sea to Old
Point Comfort, and rusticating in some quiet spot near by. I should
like nothing better than to have Rebecca for a companion."

"The very thing!" assented Adam heartily; "but why should you take the
whole responsibility? Why not let me help? I am greatly interested in
the child, and have been for some years."

"You needn't pretend you discovered her," interrupted Miss Maxwell
warmly, "for I did that myself."

"She was an intimate friend of mine long before you ever came to
Wareham," laughed Adam, and he told Miss Maxwell the circumstances of
his first meeting with Rebecca. "From the beginning I've tried to think
of a way I could be useful in her development, but no reasonable
solution seemed to offer itself."

"Luckily she attends to her own development," answered Miss Maxwell.
"In a sense she is independent of everything and everybody; she follows
her saint without being conscious of it. But she needs a hundred
practical things that money would buy for her, and alas! I have a
slender purse."

"Take mine, I beg, and let me act through you," pleaded Adam. "I could
not bear to see even a young tree trying its best to grow without light
or air,--how much less a gifted child! I interviewed her aunts a year
ago, hoping I might be permitted to give her a musical education. I
assured them it was a most ordinary occurrence, and that I was willing
to be repaid later on if they insisted, but it was no use. The elder
Miss Sawyer remarked that no member of her family ever had lived on
charity, and she guessed they wouldn't begin at this late day."

"I rather like that uncompromising New England grit," exclaimed Miss
Maxwell, "and so far, I don't regret one burden that Rebecca has borne
or one sorrow that she has shared. Necessity has only made her brave;
poverty has only made her daring and self-reliant. As to her present
needs, there are certain things only a woman ought to do for a girl,
and I should not like to have you do them for Rebecca; I should feel
that I was wounding her pride and self-respect, even though she were
ignorant; but there is no reason why I may not do them if necessary and
le